Dale was massively underappreciated for us, but he also wasn't perfect in his first season, mostly as he was a 21 year old playing like he was the third midfielder despite being in a two. He dropped so deep to pick up the ball that our central midfield could feel a little disjointed. Jackson would always play narrow as needed and was always behind the attacks, arriving late to score his goals meaning he could defend on the counter, but while Hollands was motoring around going box to box Dale would sometimes be further behind the play than he should have been and we weren't always as positive in possession as a result.
The flip side of that though was that we had so much more control of games when Dale was there, especially in the last 10/15 when we wanted to see a game out. Hughes and Russell came in when Dale was injured and knew what job they needed to do, shielding the defence and allowing Hollands to push up more, but Hughes didn't have the engine anymore to consistently run games, and he and Russell both weren't very good on the ball so we ended up with some slightly uncontrolled results against Wycombe and Yeovil where we needed to be calmer but couldn't be, and some dropped points against the likes of Orient, Oldham and Walsall when we couldn't break down teams that were trying to frustrate us. It wasn't always easy to see what Dale was doing but you felt it when he wasn't there.
As well as his Bury goal he also scored the winner against Wycombe that gave us the title at The Valley, which was a special moment. Cheers Dale.
Dale was massively underappreciated for us, but he also wasn't perfect in his first season, mostly as he was a 21 year old playing like he was the third midfielder despite being in a two. He dropped so deep to pick up the ball that our central midfield could feel a little disjointed. Jackson would always play narrow as needed and was always behind the attacks, arriving late to score his goals meaning he could defend on the counter, but while Hollands was motoring around going box to box Dale would sometimes be further behind the play than he should have been and we weren't always as positive in possession as a result.
The flip side of that though was that we had so much more control of games when Dale was there, especially in the last 10/15 when we wanted to see a game out. Hughes and Russell came in when Dale was injured and knew what job they needed to do, shielding the defence and allowing Hollands to push up more, but Hughes didn't have the engine anymore to consistently run games, and he and Russell both weren't very good on the ball so we ended up with some slightly uncontrolled results against Wycombe and Yeovil where we needed to be calmer but couldn't be, and some dropped points against the likes of Orient, Oldham and Walsall when we couldn't break down teams that were trying to frustrate us. It wasn't always easy to see what Dale was doing but you felt it when he wasn't there.
As well as his Bury goal he also scored the winner against Wycombe that gave us the title at The Valley, which was a special moment. Cheers Dale.
A quick look at the end of season statbank for that year, and Stephens came 15th. If you take out Cort and Hughes who started 9 games and 6 games then he still only came 13th.
Dale was massively underappreciated for us, but he also wasn't perfect in his first season, mostly as he was a 21 year old playing like he was the third midfielder despite being in a two. He dropped so deep to pick up the ball that our central midfield could feel a little disjointed. Jackson would always play narrow as needed and was always behind the attacks, arriving late to score his goals meaning he could defend on the counter, but while Hollands was motoring around going box to box Dale would sometimes be further behind the play than he should have been and we weren't always as positive in possession as a result.
The flip side of that though was that we had so much more control of games when Dale was there, especially in the last 10/15 when we wanted to see a game out. Hughes and Russell came in when Dale was injured and knew what job they needed to do, shielding the defence and allowing Hollands to push up more, but Hughes didn't have the engine anymore to consistently run games, and he and Russell both weren't very good on the ball so we ended up with some slightly uncontrolled results against Wycombe and Yeovil where we needed to be calmer but couldn't be, and some dropped points against the likes of Orient, Oldham and Walsall when we couldn't break down teams that were trying to frustrate us. It wasn't always easy to see what Dale was doing but you felt it when he wasn't there.
As well as his Bury goal he also scored the winner against Wycombe that gave us the title at The Valley, which was a special moment. Cheers Dale.
A quick look at the end of season statbank for that year, and Stephens came 15th. If you take out Cort and Hughes who started 9 games and 6 games then he still only came 13th.
An excellent summary of the difference between what football fans see and what a player actually brings to a team. We won the league with a record points total that season, but of all the players in that team Dale is the only one who went on to play in the Premier League consistently. Hollands, Taylor, Green, Waggy, they all dropped down the leagues. Wiggins and Solly were injury victims, BWP did ok in America, but in the end the only other one to get a couple of seasons in the Prem was Hamer on and off. Even Yann couldn't really get a game at the top level. What Dale did on the pitch wasn't as impressive on the eye as some of the others but it brought a lot to our play. He was a really excellent player and Powell managed to pick him up for next to nothing which was incredible.
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If you go back to page one, there’s some absolute pearlers in there!
https://www.charltonafc.com/news/dale-stephens-star-charltontv